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Around the Sound (Öresund)

Having watched ‘Dekha ek khwaab to e silsile huye’ while growing up and later DDLJ, travelling in Europe and that too by train has been a fantasy! The very scene of train gushing through snow clad alps or the green fields or the colorful tulip gardens was something that I always wanted to cherish and enjoy!

The Oresund Bridge

‘Around The Öresund’ a ticket valid for two days, provided by ‘Skånetrafiken’ entitles you one round of journey around the Öresund Strait including train, bus and ship journeys. This provided a wonderful opportunity to travel through the ‘Skåne’ county of Sweden, cross to Denmark by a ship, travel through the coastal lines of Denmark, visit Copenhagen and cross back to Sweden via the famous ‘Öresund’ Bridge. All in two days, with a shoe string budget.

Öresund in Swedish and Danish, literally meaning ‘The Sound’ in English is a strait that separates Denmark from Southern Sweden. It has the shortest width of around 4 kms at a narrowest point between ‘Elsinore’ in Denmark and Helsingborg in Sweden.

Our journey started in Helsinborg, a town south of Gothenburg. Helsinborg is a scenic coastal city with many old buildings. ‘Kullagatan’ the main pedestrian shopping street here is one of the attractions apart from historical fortress and many churches. This being the point nearest to Denmark, the ship journey takes you to Denmark in a jiffy. Being first timers in the ship, it was really very interesting to see, the huge trucks, cars along with fellow homo sapiens boarding in the same ship.

Kronborg Castle

The ship was a huge one with bars, restaurants, a deck, a huge parking place to accommodate big trucks, cars, two wheelers and bicycles alike! Quite spacious seating areas and a lovely view of sea!

After the cross over, you will reach Helsingör (Elsinore in English influenced by Shakespeare). This quiet city has ‘Kronborg Castle’ which William Shakespeare has immortalized in his famous play Hamlet.  This city offers quite beautiful views of the sea, the strait and castle!  After spending quite some time here we boarded the trains in Denmark and continued our journey towards Copenhagen. One sharp contrast we noticed between trains in Sweden and Denmark were the Danish trains were quite colorful with colors like purple, orange and pink as compared to their sober counterparts in Sweden!

At Hellerup

With the ‘Around the Sound’ ticket you could get down anywhere in the coastal line of Denmark and hop on-hop off to any bus or train. Got down at Hellerup, got see the some of the modern Danish architecture along with ‘Experimentarium’, a museum and science center which are activity based. With a brief break here, we headed towards Copenhagen!

A stone art in Hellerup

Copenhagen is a harbor town and has a lot of historical significance. This is a crowded city and it just reminded me the port of Bombay! The city has historical, religious and modern stuff as well for a tourist to enjoy.  A couple of days or rather few hours in day cannot do justice to Copenhagen, but in the interest of time we decided to stick to a plan and headed towards ‘The Little Mermaid’.

The little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid is a statue near the shore and is one the most visited landmarks in Copenhagen. Based and built on the ‘Little Mermaid’ fairy tale, this statue (or a copy of it) stands (or sits) today with a good deal of history surrounding it.  

The next item on the menu was ‘Gefion Fountain’ featuring the large scale group of animal figures driven by Legendary Norse Goddess ‘Gefjun’ a mythological Goddess of Nordic regions. ‘Gefjun’  is a Goddess associated with ‘Ploughing’ and it is believed that Gefjun ploughed away lake Malaren (now a lake in Sweden) , thus forming the island of Zealand (to which Copenhagen belongs now). Coincidentally I found a lot of striking similarities between our Hindu mythical Gods, Lord Balarama who always has a plough in his hand and Lord Parashuram who reclaimed the land from the Sea. Aren’t the mythological characters similar? 

The Anglican Church

 Next destination was Saint Alban’s Anglican Church commonly referred as English Church, inaugurated in 1887, during which most of European nobility were present including the Prince and Princess of Wales, King and Queen of Denmark and Greece, Tsar and Tsarina from Russia. This church stands tall amidst lot of greenery as well near the harbor.

A street in Copenhagen

The most admiring part of this city is that, if you have a map and you know about the places, you can just walk around if you have energy!  Walking around the streets of Copenhagen you can see a lot of old architectural buildings. ‘Nyhavn’ (New harbor or port) road is one such place, lined by brightly colored 17th and 18th Century houses, bars, cafés and restaurants. 

Sand Art at Nyhavn

Amalienborg Palace

Next pit stop was Amalienborg palace, which is the winter home of the Dutch Royal Family. This consists of the four identical buildings forming a circle. The change of Guard ceremony of the Royal guards in front of the palace is believed to be a real treat to watch! Unfortunately this happens at noon and we had to miss it. Nevertheless we had a pleasure of watching the Royal guards in action doing their duties.

Marble Church

With almost tired and retired legs we headed to Marble Church (Popular Name) also called as Frederik’s church. This church boasts of the largest dome in Scandinavia with a span of 31 meters. It is believed to be inspired from St Peters basilica in Rome. This magnificent church stands tall towards the west of the palace. Needless to say it was all tranquility inside the church and I was really impressed by the large dome and the magnificent interiors of the church.

The dome, from inside

Most of the our Copenhagen, the Sun God didn’t show mercy on us to take good photographs, but nevertheless it was worth seeing a lot of historical places and learn a bit about the European history. Dragging our feet we boarded on to a train towards Malmö. The train passes through the Öresund Bridge. Commissioned in 1999, this 8 Km bridge connects the Danish capital Copenhagen and Swedish city of Malmö and primarily serves as major link for road and rail networks connecting Nordic countries to central and western Europe.

Turning Torso from Malmo Beach

Malmö Capital of Skåne County is known for its Green Initiatives and Good Living. We were really impressed to see that most of the public transport here runs on Bio Fuel and most aptly the buses are colored ‘Green’. It boasts of some excellent parks and also called as City of Parks, which reminds me of our own ‘Bengaluru’, once upon a time. The main attractions are the turning torso and white sandy beaches.

Art at a park in Green city Malmo

One heartening fact to take away is that, this is one city where whole of sustainability is preached and practiced right from eco buildings, waste management, public transportation, use of renewable energy etc etc. I hope other cities will draw some lessons from it and start going green.

With an unfulfilled desire to spend a evening or morning watching the Öresund bridge we left from Malmö for a 3 day birding trip towards southwestern tip of Sweden and guess what? Our two day ‘Around the Sound’ was still valid!!! Till we reached the Town of Falsterbo. Read more about Birding experience at Falsterbo here!

Fluttering by Pondi

This post is from archives of our trip to Pondicherry and Point Calimere during October/November 2011.  We didn't spot any other butterflies in Point Calimere other than Roses but Pondicherry had lots to offer. Here is the butterfly post, birding post yet to come.
Do enjoy the pics, comments and corrections are welcome as always. And Thanks Rohit for helping out in correcting the ID's.

Common Bushbrown




Common Wanderer  Common Gull

 

Small Cupid   Plain Cupid



Three-spot Grass Yellow



Common Emigrant



Common Jezebel



Blue Tiger



Plains Cupid  Small Cupid

 

Jewel Bug amongst the butterflies

Tawny Coster

 

Blue Tiger

Common Crow

Weekend Getaway: Malavalli and Shimsha

As we started early on a Saturday morning, we didn't really know where we were heading to :-) I guess Balu wanted that to be only felt. As we called Balu near Malavalli, we were told to wait near a temple on the out skirts of Malavalli. Our first pit stop was a 11th Century Lakshmi Narasimhaswamy temple @ Marehalli near Malavalli.

Kalyani near the Temple

Waiting was never boring in the premises of such a temple. This temple is within a massive compound that has various trees within and a kalyani just infront of it. With a water body and fauna nearby , this was a nice habitat for birds and for us too :-). As I understood later, if we could have gone little ahead, we would have come across a kere (tank)  I really appreciate the wisdom of our forefathers in building such a temple complexes and water bodies in the vicinity of these. I guess this really promoted co existence :-).

Green in Glory

After a spending considerable time here, we moved in to our destination Abbies wilderness Camp. This place has few huts and is has very basic accommodation but truly wonderful hosts. More than this, its the surrounding where its located makes your visit worth your penny. As soon as we checked in , we headed in to the wild and it was time for afternoon trek :-) Yes.... we trekked in the afternoon and came back by evening. Guess we were tired and so the birds too, we just had the luxury of watching nature from vantage view points. 

Two Twigs

Nest of  Social Spider

Giant Wood Spider??

Next day, we were up early for birding had a quite time. After birding as we returned for breakfast we  nature unraveled itself with this. Just a few feet away from the camp, this pangolin's body was all around, fresh , blood dripping in at few places. As I was taking the pictures , the camp's staff informed that its a leapords kill and pangolin must have fallen prey the same morning. As I scavenged the surroundings for any more drama found this lever? of the pangolin lying few meters away. There was no other trace left over there and the killer had done his job perfect!  As we headed for our breakfast, I am sure the killer leopard had his sumptuous breakfast for the day.

Pangolin  in pieces !

Next destination was to visit the other side of  Asia's first Hydro Electric Power Station near Shimshapura. As we descended down the valley in the rocky terrain, an Indica which accompanied us had a flat tyre!. As we were changing the tyre this DRONOG and Black eagle made their appearance. Nothing is for free for sure!

We drove some distance and then it was the time for "Nataraja Service" (Walking). As we walked further in the forests, our destination was Benki falls  as the locals call it, we had to walk quite a distance. There was this temple in the midst of the jungle added lot of color to lush green surroundings. A few  brahminey kites were doing great acrobatics and catching fish in the water. As we cameback, I was not sure whether my dear ALTO will keep its breath till we comeback up hills, but I must say, it held on and did a fantastic JOB!

Benki Falls - I am sure this will turn glorious during monsoon!

Liked the creators Idea of filling these steps up in all possible colors!

Check out Birding report here and Butterflying report here

Butterfly-ing near Malavalli

Early days of butterflying in our lives, we had a good time with butterflies in between birding near Malavalli, Shimsha :-) A post on birding will come soon. Enjoy the pics. Comments welcome.

Blue Pansy - Wings folded

Blue Pansy - Wings folded

Blue Pansy

Common Pierrot

Plain Orange Tip

Tiger in Malavalli :-)

Baronet

Another Tiger- This is Striped ......

Pioneer :-) - A perspective (Thank you Rohit Rohit Girotra) 

Baronet Wings folded

And, finally this one! Sum called me to watch this interesting thing as she was taking video. An emigrant was struck in the spider web and soon the spider came, it quickly encircled its prey and I am sure this fella would have enjoyed his lunch for the day. Watch this video and a couple of shoots.

Spider (ID needed) munching on its prey - An emigrant 

Emigrant struck in a spiders web

Bangalore to Kodai - Memorable Drive

You would probably call me insane! Instead of zipping past on NH7 from Bangalore to Kodai, rather I opted for more round about route to reach Kodai via Bandipur and Ooty. But believe me, the drive was worth! Zipping past the highways is always an option but I prefer going round country side and enjoy the nature around. With booming highways now a days, I feel there is no real life that you can see when you are on highways, and I would rather prefer to see some life around and opted for singlelane country side routes.

The first pit stop was at Chik-Yelchetti, on outskirts of Bandipur. Truly wonderful and serene place and Subbanna and family were true hosts. Read about the experience here.

Bandipur Forest - This myna gave us a good timeshare

Having spent quality time at Chick Yelcheeti, we headed out to Coonoor. Drive from Bandipur to Coonoor was excellent, as most of our journey was through the national park and we were lucky to sight some wild life on our way. Coonoor was just a brief stop over on the way and plan was to head towards to Kodai the next day. We took Coonoor-Coimbatore-Pollachi-Udumalaipettai-Palani-Kodai route and drive was excellent. Starting early from Coonoor helped as the summer was at its best throughout the plains below.

Rich Canopy - Kodai Hills

We found Kodai, more non commercial than ooty, still has a bit of old rusty town look. The place of stay was at Hill Country resorts, which has quite a huge property and is bit away from town. After doing a quick round up for regular sight seeing places, overflowing with people, we decided not to venture any more to those spots and to stick to Berijam Lake.

Misty Mountains

Berijam Lake is an artificial lake created during British Era and wiki tells that this lake is quite significant from palynological point of view as well. This lake is supposed to have hidden 20,000 years of history in its sediments. This lake is covered by forest area and access is controled by State forest department. You will have to stand in a queue infront of Kodai Forest department and post 10 AM department folks will start issuing the permits.

Mother and Kid - Bonnet faced Macaque

Nilgiri Langur- An endemic to the region



Pill millipede

 

A Beetle- ID needed

I must tell you, the way the permits are given is quite messy! Typical of any government office.  Make sure you are there early in the queue to get your permits. After forest check post, it's a 14 kms of drive up to Berijam lake and as usual we did car-birding. Initially we expected good birding, but may be due to the timing, we managed only to catch up with a few birds. We saw, fly catchers, thrushes, crested serpent eagle  call, probably its nest also (near the lake), a glimpse of Besra and pipits as well.



Nilgiri Pipit - Female???



Nilgiri Fly catchers- Couple

Thick billed/Jungle Crow

Nilgiri Laughing Thrush

Jungle Myna

Nevertheless, with a decent outing in the forests during the first day, we decided to head there second day as well. This time around we spent quite a bit of time in walking around the trail near the Berijam Guest house/Lake. The only suggetion I have, to TN Forest departments is, they should allow the naturalists/birders a bit early in the Forest.

Mango Slices - Bazaar Street Kodai

With a good memory few days spent at Kondai, we took the usual route back home via Dindigul. Descent from kodai was pretty scenic and we reached Dindigul pretty quickly. After a break there, it was all through NH7 till Bangalore.